Book Review: Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Sorry for the lack of action on here in the last month or so. I have been really busy with Uni, then the Easter holidays came and I was off to American for a few weeks. Lots of fun.

Whilst waiting in the airport for my flight home I found this book and I immediately bought it. There have been a few good reviews on it, so I was really excited to see what it was like.

I was happily surprised that the author lived in Austin, and so it was fate that I had to read it. Austin is my home, well not really, just symbolically.

Wade Watts is your typical teenager living in 2044. Trying to escape from the ruined world outside him he immerses himself in the virtual reality computer program OASIS. When OASIS's creator James Halliday dies, he sets out to give his unbelievable fortune to whoever finds his hidden object in the OASIS. Wade, also known as Parzival online, sets out to crack the code and find the object before a large corporation does. It's a race against time and powerful bad guys. It's exciting, gripping and heartwarming all at the same time.

What I loved about this book was how easily you were transported into the virtual reality world of the OASIS and then back into the real world of the characters. I thought I would get confused with who was doing what and where, but it was really easy to follow.

The characters were really likeable and believable, and it also served as an insight into the future where everyone lives their lives online.
You root for the goodies, and hate the baddies. There are a lot of references to the 80's and even though most of them were beyond my knowledge, it still sets the scene perfectly.

There are connotations to life in the 21st century, as we are constantly online and always pining for the good old days of yore. Even fashion now-a-days is influenced by our parents generation and the need for retro products and things are ever so apparent in our every day lives.

This book is fun, exciting, and unputdownable.

Rating: 4.5/5

Have you read it? What did you think?

Happy Reading

Emma